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The summer sporting calendar is firmly underway in England, and there’s only one thing anybody’s talking about. There’s a bit of chat in certain quarters about some soccer tournament that’s taking place in South Africa, but it’s England’s Test series with Bangladesh that has really captured the public imagination. Sort of. 

After two unforgettable fixtures in the oppressive heat of Dhaka and Chittagong in March, the prospect of a return leg threw up countless questions that the world wanted answering. Could Bangladesh improve on their depressingly terrible display on their last tour five years ago? How would England fare in their first assignment since sailing into the totally uncharted waters of ‘world champion’ status? And would anyone, anywhere, pay even the slightest bit of attention?

The first thing to say is that England won the series, and won it 2-0. Any other outcome, of course, would have been a seismic event. In a sense, though, the inevitability of the result rendered it more or less irrelevant; from the outset, the only interest lay in how close Bangladesh could make it. While the margins of victory at both Lord’s (eight wickets) and Old Trafford (an innings and 80 runs) were extremely comprehensive, there were small signs that, though the gulf between the teams remains wide, it is no longer unbridgeable.

The first and most obvious manifested itself in the shape of Tamim Iqbal, who may only be pint-sized, but is a colossus at the crease. He had the hosts running scared with swashbuckling hundreds in both Tests, and gave every indication that he is on the verge of becoming his country’s first truly world-class batsman. He is beginning to carry Bangladesh in the way that Brian Lara used to carry West Indies, or Andy Flower Zimbabwe – it is no coincidence that on the only occasion that he failed, in the second innings in Manchester, his teammates folded for well under 200.

In Junaid Siddique, Imrul Kayes and Mahmadullah, the Tigers have several other promising batsmen in their ranks, while their fielding, ordinary in the first Test, was electric in the second. The impotence of their bowling unit, however, is the great big elephant in the room. The captain, Shakib al-Hasan, was criticised for setting defensive fields from ball one, but what choice did he have when his players were serving up such buffet stuff? They seldom looked like taking wickets, and if you don’t take wickets, it’s fiendishly difficult to win Test matches.

As far as England are concerned, they will be relieved to have emerged from four consecutive contests with Bangladesh without anything untoward happening –had they slipped up even slightly, the rabid British press corps would have eaten them alive. Their batting was businesslike, with Andrew Strauss playing himself back into form, Ian Bell continuing to win over the legions of doubters, and Jonathan Trott registering perhaps the least celebrated double hundred of all time. Given the nature of the contest though, the majority of the focus has been on the bowlers.

That same fickle press corps have been unabashedly swooning over Steven Finn, the latest Chosen One destined to lead England to (Ashes) glory, and talking up his innumerable attributes – he’s tall, quick, tall, level-headed, and tall. At six foot 8, he’s also very tall. He was certainly impressive, rewarding all the faith shown in him with 15 wickets in the series, including two fivefors. Yet doubts remain.

In many ways, Finn is Stuart Broad 2.0 – both tall, both bouncy, both rather pointlessly handsome. Both anointed at an early age to spearhead England’s bowling attack. Like Broad when he first burst onto the scene, Finn clearly has tremendous potential. There is, however, a danger in getting carried away with initial successes. Despite their vast improvement, it is still only Bangladesh. Richard Johnson had a similarly breathtaking introduction to Test cricket, with a six-wicket haul against Zimbabwe in 2003. Where is he now? Not playing Test cricket, that’s for sure.

It is, moreover, three years since Broad made his debut, and even now he is closer to mediocrity than greatness. There have been some outstanding performances, like The Oval 2009, which everyone remembers, but broadly speaking (pun very much intended), he has been average. Can we be sure Finn will not tread a similar path? There is only one way to find out, of course, but if in Brisbane the English seam attack consists of Broad, Finn, and an Anderson deprived of the gloomy conditions that transform him from anonymous to unplayable, the Aussies are unlikely to lose too much sleep.

To an extent, Ajmal Shahzhad, called into the team at Old Trafford, is the more exciting prospect. Possessing the ability to reverse swing the ball at pace and the happy capacity to hit the stumps, he is thrillingly reminiscent of Simon Jones, an erstwhile Chosen One who genuinely did propel England to Ashes glory. Such a resemblance demands an extended run in the team.

This series would be unlikely to live long in the memory even if the World Cup wasn’t about to blast everything but football out of English heads. Nevertheless, both sides will feel it has been an instructive experience, perhaps more so than anticipated. Sadly, though, the Tigers will be unable to apply anything they have learned about prospering in English conditions for ten (count em, ten) years, since they are not scheduled to return until then. Consciously or unconsciously, England are contributing to the marginalisation of Bangladesh by the non-Asian nations. Lest we forget, this is a nation of 160 million souls that ought to be at the very heart of the sport’s future. If they are banished instead to the periphery, forced onto a torturous treadmill of ODIs against Zimbabwe and Ireland, the biggest loser will be cricket.